Championship Weekend - The Official v2 Thread

[Pr4wn]

Afternoon football fans!

So here we have the official v2 discussion thread for the 2011-12 Championship weekend.

Firstly tonight, we have Brady, The Gronk, Welker and the Patriots, going up against Suggs, Lewis, Ngata and the Ravens. While the Ravens appear to be the most balanced team in this matchup, the Patriots offence is firing on all cylinders right now, and Brady is looking almost unstoppable. The key here for me will be the Ravens' pass rush. Brady may have to make short, quick throws in order to pick up yards. On the other side of the ball, much has been said about Joe Flacco and whether he has the mettle and/or ability to take the Ravens all the way. Ray Rice is surely in for a big night on the ground but Flacco will have to shoulder a lot of the burden if the Ravens are going to put up enough points to beat this Pats team.

Next, we have the San Francisco 49ers going up against the New York Giants. Two surprise teams, really, but for different reasons. Some were not evven expecting the 9ers to win their own division before this season began, let alone make it this far into the playoffs. The Giants, on the other hand, only just scraped their way into the playoffs but both their offence and defence looked ominous in their dismantling of the Packers at Lambeau Field last week. I, for one, am really looking forward to this game.

The ChatBox will be on for the duration of the evening and I expect a good turnout!

[Colan (niner)]

what time you all reckon the niners game will finish,im hoping for three hours sleep after it. Niners will shock the world come lucas oil stadium time

[Pr4wn]

Should finish around 3 I reckon.

[Colan (niner)]

thanks, some of my m8's at uni who are nfl fans aren't going to stay up for it, but how oftten have the niners done so well, i think learning tomorrow as a zombie will be worth it if we pull it off

[cherriesfna]

we having a chat box like last week?

[BamBam]

Going to struggle to watch the 49ers game tonight, I have an exam at 9.30 tomorrow morning! Will try and get on the chatbox when I can, too many games I want to watch today, with the Spurs-City then Arsenal-Utd games then the 2 big championship games!

I reckon that Belichick will make sure that Rice isn't the man to beat them, if the Ravens are going to win, it will be on the back of the defence and Flacco. Can see Mayo paying very close attention to Rice for the majority of the game.

49ers-Giants is too close to call, both quality defences but the Giants have got the edge on offence with Eli, Nicks and Cruz. Hoping we can run the ball effectively with Gore and Hunter to slow down their pass rush, and a few big plays from Alex Smith and Vernon Davis would go down very nicely.

Go 49ers!!

[Pr4wn]

We certainly will, Cherries!

I'm definitely staying up for this. I reckon the Giants 9ers is going to be a cracker.

[skins4ever]

OK, really narked that the Giants won. I only hope that Brady picks up his game in the SB, else the Giants could stroll it if their D puts the heat on Brady.

[CFCNick]

Kyle Williams is gonna have nightmares of Jacquian Williams and Devin Thomas running at him with a punt coming. Both massive heads up plays by Devin that earned us 10 points.

[skins4ever]

Haven't watched the game yet, but will watch later. Write up makes it sound like the game hinged on Williams fumbles?

[cherriesfna]

lol in the comp i got 3/4 teams scores spot on

[Derbyblue]

Missed the Ravens @ Pats game and fell to sleep before OT, but it sounds like quite a few players will be kicking themselves over some of the mistakes they made last night. No idea why Williams didn't just fall on the ball as he'll have felt it hit him, but great job by Devin Thomas on not giving up on the play I guess the rules are different in the NFL for Gunners you can't re-enter the pitch at a different spot to where you get pushed out of it in BUAFL.

[skins4ever]

I believe the rule is you cannot be first to touch the ball if you go our of bounds, but otherwise there's no restriction.

I don't recall a different rule for the UK leagues. Find it hard to believe we'd ever have enough officials at a game to spot that one!

[Derbyblue]

Must have been mistold the rule, thought you were out of the play once you had gone out of bounds. Still he couldn't have made a play if Williams had made his mind up on what he wanted to do earlier, Giants kick returner tried an odd tactic too call for a fair catch but still try the return.

[BamBam]

Just watched the highlights of the Niners game, can't believe we lost that we had them on the backfoot for most of the second half, just our offence wasn't able to make plays. I am amazed that Smith only completed 1 pass to the outside the whole game, rest were either dump offs to Gore/Hunter or to Davis. Crabtree has been a huge bust, especially when you consider who he was taken in front of: Maclin, Harvin, Britt and Nicks, any of those guys would have made plays yesterday. The guy held out for weeks in his rookie year and has never looked up to the job of being a number one receiver, its a shame because he looked so good in college

Hard luck on Kyle Williams, he got some seriously sick abuse on his Twitter account but all the players seem to have rallied around him which is good to see. He is a talented player I hope this doesn't set him back too much.

Well done to the Giants, never been a huge fan of the team but respect their play. Still going to be cheering for the Patriots in 2 weeks time!

[Colan (niner)]

really proud of the niners this season. We had that game yesterday, williams made some silly mistakes but he was just trying to make a play and at least he was brave enough to give it a go. If he is a litttle more conservative and the refs don't have another bs call, maybe we could have done something

[mikeygnfl]

Very disappointed to see the 49ers lose. Especially the so-called 'fumble' by Williams when the 49ers were leading 14-10 in the final quarter. If that is a fumble then it is a pretty stupid rule. (As is the Ravens' Smith begin able to 'wave' the ball over the endzone without getting there himself).

I felt the reason the 49ers lost was the reason I thought they'd get beat last week went the Saints came back and that was that Alex Smith wouldn't be able to get constant point scoring drives. It was noticeable that that game was one of David Akers lowest scoring games.

That said it has been a great year for the 49ers to get this far. Their defence looks sorted and if they can get a few decent receivers in to compliment Davis then the future looks very bright.

I think they'll stick with Smith at QB (a trade for Luck was looking less and less likely the further they went. Though I'm not ruling entirely out probably 99.9% not). There maybe a few decent WR FA available in the close season and they will possibly get someone like Sanu or Jeffery.

[skins4ever]

Very disappointed to see the 49ers lose. Especially the so-called 'fumble' by Williams when the 49ers were leading 14-10 in the final quarter. If that is a fumble then it is a pretty stupid rule. (As is the Ravens' Smith begin able to 'wave' the ball over the endzone without getting there himself).

Haven't watched the whole game yet, so no comment yet on Williams fumble. But on the Smith comment, the rule is simple - the ball has to break the plane of the goal line. If the ball makes contact with the pylon before going OOB its the same, as the pylon is considered part of the EZ. Its no different than a short yardage run where the back is kept out of the EZ, i.e. Brady's pushing the ball forward on the sneak even though he then got pushed back. Not sure exactly what you are complaining about?

[CFCNick]

Very disappointed to see the 49ers lose. Especially the so-called 'fumble' by Williams when the 49ers were leading 14-10 in the final quarter. If that is a fumble then it is a pretty stupid rule. (As is the Ravens' Smith begin able to 'wave' the ball over the endzone without getting there himself).

The Williams fumble isn't a fumble in the sense of "he has it and either drops it or has if knocked out. But it is a fumble, much like the Cowboys-Dolphins ice bowl. The officials made a good call and I would say that even if a Giants player made the same mistake Williams made.

With the Smith TD there's nothing wrong with waving the ball over the line it happens all the time. The thing I would be aggrieved at if I was a Patriots fan would be the facemask drag. Although backs and receivers can't be flagged for hands to the face like DBs can.

[uberfunction]

Very disappointed to see the 49ers lose. Especially the so-called 'fumble' by Williams when the 49ers were leading 14-10 in the final quarter. If that is a fumble then it is a pretty stupid rule.

Actually, it was a very foolish decision by Williams to even go near that punt given the fact that he had no intention of returning it. Special teams players are told to always stay away from a bouncing punt in the case that it might accidentally hit you. Williams went near the punt in the hopes that it'll stall the Giants' coverage team from downing the ball. This along with the OT fumble was not Williams' only ST mistake. Earlier in the game he made a full speed, diving punt return catch (before the ball even bounced). I can't fully describe it but if you see it, there was ZERO chance of it being returned since 2-3 Giants' players were right there where the ball would land and Williams dove right in the middle of them. That was absolutely poor judgement by a player. Can you imagine if he fumbled that one? He barely caught it.

[TM Moot]

[quote="uberfunction"]

Earlier in the game he made a full speed, diving punt return catch (before the ball even bounced). I can't fully describe it but if you see it, there was ZERO chance of it being returned since 2-3 Giants' players were right there where the ball would land and Williams dove right in the middle of them. That was absolutely poor judgement by a player. Can you imagine if he fumbled that one? He barely caught it.

I remember that one, it was strange.
To be honest it was a great catch, full stretch at knee height, but as you said it was poor judgement.

The OT fumble was unfortunate, obviously influenced by the earlier knee incident.

[uberfunction]

[quote="TM Moot"]

Earlier in the game he made a full speed, diving punt return catch (before the ball even bounced). I can't fully describe it but if you see it, there was ZERO chance of it being returned since 2-3 Giants' players were right there where the ball would land and Williams dove right in the middle of them. That was absolutely poor judgement by a player. Can you imagine if he fumbled that one? He barely caught it.

I remember that one, it was strange.
To be honest it was a great catch, full stretch at knee height, but as you said it was poor judgement.

The OT fumble was unfortunate, obviously influenced by the earlier knee incident.

Yup. And given the way that game was going, no team was giving up yardage on defense and no turnovers by the offense. It was a stalemate going into the forth. One mistake or allowing good field position would be costly. It's really unfortunate that those mistakes had to come from a very good Niners' special teams unit.

[mikeygnfl]

Yup. And given the way that game was going, no team was giving up yardage on defense and no turnovers by the offense. It was a stalemate going into the forth. One mistake or allowing good field position would be costly. It's really unfortunate that those mistakes had to come from a very good Niners' special teams unit.

It didn't help that the usual punt returner Ted Ginn was out injured.

[uberfunction]

Yup. And given the way that game was going, no team was giving up yardage on defense and no turnovers by the offense. It was a stalemate going into the forth. One mistake or allowing good field position would be costly. It's really unfortunate that those mistakes had to come from a very good Niners' special teams unit.

It didn't help that the usual punt returner Ted Ginn was out injured.

Definitely. He's a very vital part of that unit. Could of really been a game changer.

[Thomond]

My take on events: http://www.sportpulse.net/content/2012-afc-championship-game-2698

[WhiteCamry]

The Onion's take on Eli Manning.

[crazy_dave23]

The Onion's take on Eli Manning.

"Easily a top three Manning", "Neck Works"... Comical!

[Sponsored content]